A Railway Car-Builder's Dictionary

Nowadays, we take for granted that a car of one
railroad will run just as well on any other railroad and, should it need repairs
while away from home, railroad technology is such that the “foreign” road will
be able to repair it and send it on its way.

It was not always thus.

In the earliest days of railroads in the United States, individual railroads
were short and seldom connected with other railroads. Each had its own ideas
about how cars should be built, and either built them for themselves, or had
them built to order by independent builders. The fact that the cars of one road
were totally different from those of another didn’t matter. Cars simply didn’t
run on more than one railroad.

The most basic difference between cars was the gauge—the distance between the
rails—for which they were built. This varied all the way from four feet to as much as
seven. During the Civil War, operation by the Union army over the railroads of
the south became very important to the war effort. The U.S. Military Railroad
Organization was created to address the issues involved in trying to make a
coherent operation over the conglomeration of railroads of different gauges it
found in the south. Discussions with the major railroads of the north began in
1862, and continued throughout the war.

Following the war, the issue of gauge continued to be important as railroads
proliferated, and more and more regional lines made “connections” that made them
part of a larger national network. It became apparent that the paths of commerce
required some “standard” that would allow cars of one railroad to run on the
tracks of another. The alternative was to unload cargo from the cars of one
railroad and reload onto the cars of another: a costly alternative in terms of
both time and expense.

Through a combination of discussions and circumstances, capped by the Pacific
Railway Act of 1864, that “standard” became 4 feet 8½ inches.

The discussions between the railroads that had begun during the war continued
afterward, and at a convention in May of 1867 it was decided it would be a
good idea to form an association of men responsible for the cars of each
railroad, variously referred to as car-masters or master car builders. This
association—the Master Car-Builders Association—was established 18 September
1867 at Altoona, Pennsylvania, to deal with the problems created by
interchanging freight cars.

The first action of the association was to try to formulate rules regarding
those parts of a car most subject to breakdown while on a “foreign” road, and
thus in need of immediate repair: such parts as wheels, axles, and bearings. But
it would be 19 years before those rules would be enforced by the railroads.

One thing the association did do. At its 5th annual convention, held in
Richmond, Virginia, in 1872, it was “Resolved, That a committee be appointed
with power to publish an illustrated book, defining the proper terms or names of
each and every part used in the construction of railway cars, and a description
of the use of the same.” And thus was conceived The Car-Builder’s Dictionary.

But we all know how committees work—they don’t. The Car-Builder’s Dictionary,
when it was published, was largely the product of Matthias N. Forney, an honorary
member since not himself a car-builder, but nevertheless the elected Secretary of the
Association. The fact that Forney was the editor of the Railroad Gazette, an
industry trade publication that incidentally became the publisher of the
Dictionary, no doubt had something to do with it.

The Dictionary was published in 1879. It consisted of a list of terms
used in car-building, a section of 811 engraved illustrations of cars and their
parts to which the terms were keyed, and a section of advertisements, which paid
the costs (one hopes) of publication. If car-builders couldn’t find common
ground on anything else, hopefully, they could at least now begin to speak the
same language!

The Dictionary has been updated periodically ever since. If you are
interested in the details of its publication history, please see our Bibliography.

Our Railway Car-Builder’s Dictionary
attempts to follow in the spirit of the commercial venture, and is in no wise a
continuation of it. Terms will be added as need and occasion permits.
If you have a term you'd like to know more about or think
ought to be included here, please drop us a line!We are always looking to expand the dictionary, especially
if you can supply a picture to illustrate your term.